With all the hype around the Broncos talent on offense, perhaps the most important aspect is the emergence of Courtland Sutton as a top tier receiver.
On Broncos Country Tonight PFF’s George Chahrouri joined Ryan and Ben to talk about Denver’s offense. The primary focus was on Drew Lock and his difficulties on his first read throws. According to PFF’s metric, Lock ranked 48th on first read throws, just two spots ahead of his new backup, Jeff Driskel.
That may seem like a concerning stat, but Lock should get better. A big part of that improvement will be due to the fact that Sutton is becoming one of the best wide receivers in the NFL.
Sutton ranks 8th on PFF’s list of most targeted receivers in the red zone. He’s going to be Lock’s security blanket in 2020. The article includes different situations, but Sutton only cracked the top ten for red zone targets.
With all the new weapons, Sutton may not hoard targets they way Michael Thomas does for the Saints. Noah Fant has another year under his belt with Lock. Jerry Jeudy and KJ Hamler will stretch the defense. Melvin Gordon and Phillip Lindsay should provide opportunities underneath. All signs point to the Broncos scoring a lot of points.
However, it’s Sutton’s reliability in the red zone that will help keep him near the top of the list for red zone targets. It will also help make him one of the best wide receivers in football.